WOMEN, COOPERATIVISM AND REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT: INITIAL CONSIDERATIONS

Abstract

This work brings reflections about three thematic that emerge with more strength in times of political-economic crisis. They are cooperativism, gender and regional development. Although the cooperativism is present in modern history since 1844, in the creation of Rochdale Society of Equitable Pionneers, in England, usually it rises in crisis moments. At same time, it is observed a (re)emergency about gender. Initiatives of United Nations can be mentioned, as the United Nation Development Fund for Women, the UN Women, in 2010, and the movement HeForShe, a global campaign to involve men and boys in the removal of social and cultural limits that restrain women to achieve their potential. During the pandemic period, campaigns as the Purple Mask, of Ministério Público do Rio Grande do Sul that forecasts possibilities of complaint of domestic violence; reinforce the importance of the theme. The discussion about gender, slowly, conquers space in the cooperativism. In 2019, the International Conference of International Co-operative Alliance, the Gender Equality Committee promoted an event emphasizing actions of women based in cooperative doctrine. Amartya Sen (2010) affirms that nothing currently is so important in political economy of development than the proper acknowledgment of participation and political, economic and social leadership of women. Thus, this article has the objective of discourse about the role of cooperativism for the removal of sources of privation of freedom of women and the consequent contribution to promotion of processes of regional development.